You’d be more productive if you could work from a café, study finds

If you spend your working days sitting at a desk in a sterile, stressful office, there can be something quite appealing about the thought of working from a café. The freshly-brewed coffee smell, the hum of music and chatter, the fact that you can buy a slice of carrot cake whenever you want: it all sounds pretty dreamy.

But there is, of course, a potential flipside. Would you actually get anything done – or would you just end up getting distracted?

A new study suggests that in fact, a noisy café may actually be a more productive place to work than a busy office – because the background hum of other people’s idle conversation is much less distracting than conversation between colleagues.

A cafe may be the best place to work on that important presentation.

Japanese researchers asked volunteers to carry out a simple task on a computer, while two different sounds were played in the background: first meaningless noise, then clear conversations.

They discovered that important, work-related discussions were far more distracting than overheard snatches of chit-chat between strangers, the Telegraphreports.

“Surrounding conversations often disturb the business operations conducted in open offices,” said Dr Takahiro Tamesue of Japan’s Yamaguchi University. “Because it is difficult to soundproof an open office, a way to mask meaningful speech with some other sound would be of great benefit for achieving a comfortable sound environment.”

It was found that noises including music and meaningful discussions had a stronger effect on levels of “subjective annoyance” than meaningless noises and trivial conversation – and also led to a greater decline in performance on tasks.

“The experiments suggest that when designing sound environments in spaces used for cognitive tasks – such as the workplace or schools – it is appropriate to consider not only the sound level, but also meaningfulness of the noise that is likely to be present,” said Dr Tamesue.

Do you get distracted in a busy office?

But if you work in a hectic office and can’t quite see your boss letting you slope off to the nearest Caffe Nero anytime soon, don’t despair: there are ways of bringing coffee shop vibe to your cubicle.

Simply invest in some good coffee, a chunky ceramic mug and your own personal cafetiere, plug yourself into an ambient audio app like Coffitivity, Rainy Café or Hipstersound, and tune out the world.

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Moya Crockett

Moya is Women's Editor at stylist.co.uk, where she is currently overseeing the Visible Women campaign. Carrying a tiny bottle of hot sauce on her person at all times is one of the many traits she shares with both Beyoncé and Hillary Clinton.